LAND BIRDS. 465 
not aroused until daylight streaks the east when they come forth to begin 
as before. * * * Their ordinary voice when they are engaged in 
procuring food, consists of a single rather screaming note, which from its 
tone I at first supposed to be one of alarm, but soon discovered my error. 
At other times, particularly about midday, the male sometimes selects 
a lofty pine branch, and there attemps a song; but it is a miserable failure. 
The note is a single warbling call, exceedingly like the early part of the 
Robin’s song, but not so sweet, and checked as though the performer were 
out of breath. The song, if it may be called such, is to me a most weari- 
some one. Am constantly listening to hear the stave continued and am 
as constantly disappointed (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, IV, 1879, pp. 70-71). 
As intimated already, the Evening Grosbeak is merely a winter visitor 
to Michigan, and not a regular visitor at that. Nevertheless, its ap- 
pearances seem to have become more frequent in recent years, and there 
is some reason to believe that the species is extending its range eastward 
and may eventually become a regular winter resident of the state. After 
its discovery in 1823 it does not appear to have been noted in the state 
until 1869, when Dr. Morris Gibbs met with it at Kalamazoo. Healso noted 
it there in 1872, 1873, 1874, 1878 and 1879, sometimes singly and sometimes 
in flocks. It was reported from Albion in the spring of 1886 by O. B. 
Warren, and near Brighton by A. B. Covert in December of the same year. 
In 1887, Mr. N. A. Eddy of Bay City reported it, and during the winter 
of 1889-90 it was reported very generally from all over the Lower Peninsula. 
In 1893, P. A. Taverner found a flock in the city of Port Huron, and it was 
reported in March, 1897, by Percy Selous at Greenville, and in December, 
1899, by W. H. Dunham in Kalkaska county. In April, 1900, Mr. Dunham 
again reported it in Kalkaska county, and in December of the same year 
Mr. Melville reported it at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. In December 1903 
it was reported from Presque Isle county by B. H. Swales, and in March 
1904 from Mt. Pleasant, Isabella county, by Mr. Newberry, also from 
Goodrich, Genesee county by Samuel Spicer. Mr. Thomas B. Wyman of 
Munising, Alger county, reports that a large flock remained on Grand 
Island in Lake Superior from January 23 until March 14, 1906. And they 
have reappeared in some numbers each succeeding winter. During the 
winter of 1908-1909 they were quite generally reported from the northern 
parts of the state, and there were a few reports the following winter, but 
the winter of 1910-1911 brought the largest numbers seen in recent years, 
for they appeared everywhere in flocks, even in the most southern counties 
of the state. ; ; 
Mr. Amos Butler thus sums up the eastern extension of this species 
during the last fifty years: “It is not every winter that these birds cross 
the Mississippi, and it is unusual when we note their wide distribution 
east of that river. Michigan appears to be more often visited than any other 
state noted here. As has been observed, its first recorded extension of range 
east of Lake Superior was at Toronto, Ont. in 1854; next it was noted 
from Ohio in 1860; from Ontario again in 1866 and from Michigan in 1869. 
* * * The first extensive wanderings of the Evening Grosbeak, as far 
as we know, appear to have occurred in 1871, when they extended south into 
Illinois and east into Ontario, and in 1879 they were found in localities as 
far apart as Charles City, Iowa, and Grand Rapids, Mich. In the 
winter of 1886-87 they were reported from Nebraska, Towa, Illinois, 
Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Ontario. That 
year they appear to have been most common 1n the states of Iowa, Indiana 
59 
